The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.

Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.

The lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.

It is not so impossible, however, that a man should possess all knowledge which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this, I have endeavoured in my case to do.

[Sherlock Holmes quoting:] "There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman."

"I am glad of all details," remarked my friend, "whether they seem to you to be relevant or not."

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.

You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.

You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.

Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.

It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

"Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there."

It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.

"Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," answered Holmes thoughtfully. "It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different."

My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know.

As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be.

There is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.

On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences.

"Data! Data! Data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay."

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

"When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge."